New book Red Fortress shows Putin is one of Russia’s nicest leaders

If you think you understand Russia, then it’s a pretty sure sign that you definitely, definitely don’t. Few countries have as complicated a past as the Eastern giant and probably none have as convoluted a present.

With the controversial Sochi Winter Olympics underway, many of us feel obliged to have an opinion on the country and its authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin, even if that view is based on relatively few facts.

Anyone looking to back up general misgivings with a comprehensive explanation of the dark side of Putin’s rule and what Russians have done about it should read Moscow-based British journalist Marc Bennetts’s essential Kicking The Kremlin (Oneworld).

It’s a lively, sardonic account of Putin’s reign and those opposed to it. It paints a grim picture but neither reduces Putin to the level of cartoon villain nor elevates his enemies to faultless heroes.

Perhaps its key achievement is in contextualising cause célèbres Pussy Riot as a sideshow next to less West-friendly but more significant opposition figures such as anti-corruption lawyer Alexei Navalny.

The book’s inference is that there’s a fair chance that whoever deposed Putin would be just as bad as him but the unbridled chutzpah with which Bennetts comes to this conclusion is strangely energising.

Get an in-depth perspective on Russia with Words Will Break Cement, Kicking The Kremlin and Red Fortress (Pictures: supplied)

It is, of course, understandable that you would like to know more about balaclava-wearing punk icons Pussy Riot, in which case Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen’s Words Will Break Cement: The Passion Of Pussy Riot (Granta) is the book for you.

It’s a little verbose but, after a slightly sloggy start, Gessen’s account of the group’s apprehension and jailing following their 2012 ‘intervention’ in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is gripping stuff.

It’s also just incredibly helpful to have a lucid account of the history of the group and their aims – many in the West have blithely imposed a Sex Pistols-like narrative on this nebulous collective of political performance artists without taking any interest in actual facts, which are in abundance here.

Finally, a history of the Kremlin is about as close to a manageable history of the Russian state as you’re liable to get. In Red Fortress: The Secret Heart Of Russia’s History (Allen Lane), Catherine Merridale writes in beautifully lucid prose and is wonderful at explaining the psychology of Russian power and the manner in which the malleability of history has always been key to it.

It’s great, though it does lead you to the rather alarming conclusion that Putin is almost certainly one of the nicest men to ever lead the country.